Monroe author says 'old' media useful for entrepreneurs

Monroe resident B.J. Mendelson advises in his first book that fledgling artists and owners of small businesses should avoid using social media to promote themselves.

James Walsh

Monroe resident B.J. Mendelson advises in his first book that fledgling artists and owners of small businesses should avoid using social media to promote themselves.

In "Social Media is Bull—" released in September by St. Martin's Press, the former marketing consultant advises seeking out traditional advertising venues such as radio, TV and newspapers.

"It still works. Radio and print are not cool anymore, but people do look at the ads and they do listen to the ads on the radio more than they click on ads on Facebook," Mendelson said in a telephone interview.

Internet success almost always depends on having a recognizable name and a big budget. Getting lost in cyberspace can be almost a certainty without those elements, Mendelson said.

"I won't go so far as to say it's 100 percent absolutely useless," he said. "A lot of it can be timing and luck. But I can say that 99 percent of the time, for a small entrepreneur, money spent on social media is money wasted."

And this comes from a fellow with 750,000 Twitter followers.

Most of them — Mendelson said they once numbered 1 million — resulted from Twitter's promoting a cancer-awareness campaign he worked on in 2009.

The 2001 Monroe-Woodbury High School grad says he can attribute sales of just 25 copies of his book to Twitter, as opposed to more than 1,000 from a couple of TV appearances.

Publicity-hungry unknowns also shouldn't count on a YouTube video to propel them to fame and fortune.

Mendelson says popular videos often get that way from being publicized by the national media. And, as he notes in his book: "Most videos that generate a lot of views are, not surprisingly, well-produced. That means a lot of money was put into equipment, and even an editor or two was hired."

Mendelson spent about three years researching his book. He says he's now working on one about "the horrors of online dating."

Instead of spending a lot of money on social-media marketing campaigns, Mendelson writes: "If what you do is easy to understand, easy to use, easy to share, and it's good, given enough momentum it will be passed on."

He suggests that entrepreneurs first tap into free sources of advice such as the U.S. Small Business Administration.

"It's best to do as much as you can on your own," he said. "You'll have more control over it. What I'm advocating is taking a step back, and look for the free resources that are already out there to help you."